


These Constant Sparks

by zoicite



Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: Beltane, Enemies With Benefits, Episode: s01e04 Coda, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:35:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26682307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoicite/pseuds/zoicite
Summary: It was a powerful thing to be born with a sworn rival, such a sure thing, pre-determined.  In another life, with a different history, they might have grown up friends.  A combined force to be reckoned with.  Imagine that.Instead they had this--this mess.  Libwit Swythe and Abigail Bedwetter.
Relationships: Abigail Bellweather/Libba Swythe
Kudos: 29





	These Constant Sparks

Libba sauntered into the room right on cue, slowly clapping in that way she always did, that way that always caused irritation to flare in Abigail. Abigail was grateful for the predictability. The irritation grounded her and she tightened her grip on her scourge. 

Abigail Bellweather and Libba Swythe did not speak of these moments. They didn’t plan them together, didn’t arrange a time and a place. The last time they met like this, Libba spent half a party glaring at Abigail from across the room, only to abruptly disappear into the back of General Foster’s house. This time Abigail started it. She carefully planned her route, strode past Libba with her back straight, her eyes hard, her scourge held tight at her side. She wasn’t headed to the bus with the rest of the cadets. She went straight to the Rough Room and shut the doors behind her. 

She waited, impatient and prepared, and Libba appeared, just as Abigail was sure she would. This wasn’t their first Beltane.

They engaged in their usual battle of words, insults and barbs, a familiar dance. And then Abigail grew impatient. 

“Let’s let the scourge do the talking.” Let the scourge do the work, let the whip get them from trading barbs to the part that always came next.

“You didn’t see your boys off?” Libba’s voice was a little softer than it had been a moment before and it gave Abigail pause, had her worried for a moment that they were not on the same page. 

“I already got what I needed,” Abigail lied. 

“Same,” Libba returned, immediately, and when they both began to swing, mannequins exploding, Abigail almost wondered if it was true, if maybe they _could_ do without this. Maybe they really could let this go. After all, the scourge felt good in her hand, the swing of it strong, the aim true. Maybe they really could do without it, but Goddess, where was the fun in that?

She swung hard and felt the pull of the scourge as it whipped past her and obliterated the shoulder off the mannequin to her left. Beside her Libba grunted and another mannequin broke open in a spray of dust, pieces rattling as they hit the floor.

And then Libba dropped the pretenses and dropped her scourge, the sound of it loud in the empty room. Abigail responded immediately. She threw her own scourge aside and reached for Libba, her fingers pulling at Libba’s shirt, pushing up so that the fabric bunched beneath Libba’s arms, so that Abigail’s hands were on Libba’s skin, so that Libba gasped and pushed at Abigail, pushed her back toward the wall.

Abigail hit hard, the wall against her back, and she reached for Libba again, let Libba yank her down into an unfriendly kiss, rough and sharp, the press of teeth hard against her lips. Abigail shook her head, pulled back, a noise of dissent in her throat. 

No split lips, no marks. 

Libba understood. She followed, and this time the kiss was hard in a different way, hard with a tongue that demanded, didn’t wait, just took.

They didn’t have much time. Quartermaine would pull the others back soon enough, and then it would be time to get back to work, to show all the good that Beltane had brought. The power that Beltane left in its wake.

For that, Abigail Bellweather needed Libba Swythe.

There was no high quite like the high that came in the aftermath of this, of Abigail pushed up against a wall with Libba’s hot little hands searing her skin, Libba’s mouth leaving fire in its wake. 

The first time they did this they were seventeen.

Abigail felt the power then, the surge in focus that allowed her to push aside the shame and disgust. It was a powerful thing, to be born with a sworn rival, such a sure thing, pre-determined. In another life, with a different history, they might have grown up friends. A combined force to be reckoned with. Imagine that.

Instead they had this--this mess. Libwit Swythe and Abigail Bedwetter. They had no business in the same room, let alone swallowing each others’ tongues and sliding eager hands beneath layers of clothes. 

Two years and they never tired of this, never stopped searching it out. Abigail could go another twenty years, another thirty, and never grow bored.

She saw Libba after the Reel, walking off and pulling two of them with her. She’d chosen two because Abigail had two, because a Swythe could never let herself be outdone by a Bellweather. Abigail wouldn’t have been surprised if Libba tried to walk off with three men. 

Probably couldn’t handle it. 

No, instead Libba picked a spot in the forest where she knew Abigail would be able to hear her moans. Abigail watched Clive and Agustín kiss, she listened to Libba, she planned her next move. There was always a next move to be planned when it came to Libba Swythe. 

Nothing made Abigail feel stronger than this.

Tally tried to explain to Abigail over a bottle of vodka that Jem Bellweather and Madeline Swythe triumphed in the battle of Juarez because they worked _together_. Her eyes were shining when she said it, so bright, so sure that she was right, that this would be _the_ revelation that would turn the tide on a centuries-long feud. 

Of course Tally was right about the battle. Abigail wasn’t stupid. Jem Bellweather distracted the enemy while Madeline Swythe called the storm. They all knew the story. It wasn’t the facts that were the problem, it was the way the Swythe’s framed it. 

Abigail pressed her teeth to Libba’s lip and swallowed Libba’s cry.

_Disastrous and poorly led._

It was the Swythes who refused to share credit, the Swythes who could not play nice. The Swythes took Jem Bellweather’s sacrifice and shat on it, pushed her down into the muck, stood on her back to make themselves seem taller.

No step stool could make Libba Swythe tall enough to block Abigail’s light. Libba could repeat her lies a thousand times, a million. She could dance with, sleep with, _fuck_ every man that Abigail so much as glanced toward and it would never be enough to pull Libba out from Abigail’s shadow. Abigail was a fucking Bellweather. What was Libba? Nothing but a sniveling sloth of a Swythe. 

Well, at least she wasn’t Spree. Abigail was damn sure of that.

“Hurry,” Libba hissed. “Come on.”

It didn’t take long. It never did when it was the two of them. It wasn’t Beltane anymore and they didn’t have hours to explore, to linger and couple again and again. They had a few heated minutes and neither of them would ever admit to wanting or needing more. They adapted. They got good at it. They knew what made the other tick, what made her quicken, what made her spill.

Paul was good for a while. Clive and Agustín did their part, but time and time again, it was Libba that truly lit Abigail up, really made her understand the purpose of Beltane, the potential, the strength. It was Libba who provided that push that Abigail needed, that spark. 

Paul was gone and all but forgotten. Clive and Agustín were nothing but a moment in time. Libba was lasting. Libba was constant. Libba was _hers_.

She held tight to Libba, nails pressed sharp into shoulders as she accepted the release, as it rolled through her, as she shook through it. Her breath came ragged and her knees buckled and Libba held her up as it all exploded in bright white light, strong and sweet on her tongue and in her gut and in her body pressed to Libba Swythe. 

“Good?” Libba smiled, sure that the answer was _yes_ , even as Abigail yanked Libba’s hand away, as Abigail pushed her back and took control. Libba just smiled wider. She pressed her fingers to her lips, tasted them, and Abigail grunted and shook her head in disgust, even as her heart raced and her fingers itched to get to work.

She looked down at Libba, at Libba’s eyes that were both dark and impossibly bright, at the sharp caterpillars of her eyebrows, at the mocking curve of her mouth. She wanted to kiss away the triumph in her smile, that victory grin. 

“All charged up,” Abigail confirmed. 

She pressed a hand firm to Libba’s chest, pinned her back against the wall. Her other hand made fast work of Libba’s belt, pulled at her jeans so that Libba’s hips jerked forward with the force of it and slammed back when she let go. 

Libba watched her with an intensity that never strayed, not even when Abigail was looking elsewhere, looking down at Libba’s open jeans, at the dark shadow there, at her hand sliding into that warmth and finding Libba so _ready_ for her. Even then Abigail felt Libba’s eyes on her face, watching her, savoring Abigail’s reaction. 

“Lewd little Libba,” Abigail said, and her fingers went to work. "Lascivious Libba."

"Big words for a Bellweather."

Any moment now, any second, the others would return.

"You better not take long." 

Libba did not take long. 

Abigail knew how to play her, knew to stick to the right side, just there. She knew the exact press, the perfect slide and Libba was gone, mouth open, face twitching in a way that might have been funny if it didn’t make Abigail’s stomach flip, didn’t leave her feeling like she was ready to go again. Abigail curled in toward Libba, her forehead against the shorter girl’s, her mouth open against Libba’s. She took in those panting breaths and she made them her own.

Libba turned her face against Abigail’s and Abigail felt the brush of eyelashes against her cheek. 

“Good,” Libba said, and knocked Abigail away. 

That was it. It was all the time they had, and by the time the others began to file in, Abigail and Libba were standing apart, their shirts tucked in, belts buckled, scourges in hand. Libba pushed away from the wall and walked away from Abigail, toward her unit. Tally and Raelle filed in and caught Abigail in their midst, and she walked forward as part of something, as part of them. She tightened her gloves, smiled. She was ready. 

Maybe it was the smile that caught Tally’s attention. Maybe she’d failed to fix her clothes just right. Whatever it was, Tally took her in, looked her up and down, and her lips twitched as she knocked against Abigail’s shoulder.

“Something tells me you’re going to do better than me today.”

Abigail knocked her back. She felt Libba’s eyes on her again, and she ignored it. She was good, charged up, focused. She leaned in toward Tally.

“What are you talking about? A win for me is a win for you. We’re a unit, remember?”

Abigail was going to do just fine. Abigail was going to do great.

Abigail was a Bellweather and though she would never admit it, not to Tally or Raelle--and never to Libba--Abigail knew that working together was what made them great.


End file.
